Consultancy and information architecture

As an information architecture training company for this specific profession we are very involved in developing its practical implementation. This becomes clear of course from the contents of our training and from the practical insight of our teachers. It also becomes clear from our involvement with the development of quality labels for consultancy and the professional development in e.g. a university setting and within ERIA, the European registry for information architects.
One of our business goals is coaching; supervision on and increasing the professionalism of architects in the presentation of information. We have a complete range of tools to support the architects in their professional and personal development. Characteristic of the senior level nowadays is that they have shaped their development themselves. This implies that they have frequently built their knowledge base on personal preferences or on what they came across during their careers. Some architects choose to use a more specific title such as process architect to indicate their specific field of expertise.

In the near future, graduates of information architecture university courses will be looking for employment. This new elite in information architecture will have much professional know-how and up-to-date knowledge with regard to the latest developments. This could mean that the status of the self-acquired expertise of the more experienced information architects could lose its current status. At ABIO, we feel this development to be undesirable and therefore take into account this increasing demand for consultancy skills by offering 'professionalism' training as an alternative that could provide the same status as degrees of the newly trained architects.

We acquire this goal by making a profile of individual ICT architects, assessing knowledge and skills as well as affective and regulative qualities followed by a recommendation for possible improvements in relevant fields.

We also do this for companies by making a profile for a team of architects and guide career developments in a more productive way.

The special supervision routes for Juniors have a two-sided goal, on the one hand we recognise the need for transfer of experiential knowledge for some, on the other hand there is the need for the more experienced participants for the knowledge they already have to be made more explicit.